September 17, 2026
Cover Feature: Triton Villa | Ian Hurdle, The Agency
It started in a garden in Acapulco
In 1969, at Las Brisas in Acapulco, Enrique Corcuera wanted a tennis court at his house and did not have the room for one. So he built something else. Twenty meters by ten, walled to three meters, with a tennis net strung across the middle. His wife Viviana wrote the first set of rules and gave them to him as a birthday present. That court, in that garden, is where padel begins.
From one garden to 150 countries
It did not stay in the garden. Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe visited the house, saw the court and built his own at the Marbella Club Hotel in the early seventies. Julio Menditeguy, an Argentine member of Alfonso's club, carried the game to Buenos Aires, where the first courts went up at Club Tortugas and the Mar del Plata Ocean Club. Argentina formed the world's first national association in 1988. The international federation followed in Madrid in 1991, and the first world championships a year later. Today the FIP counts a hundred affiliated federations, play in more than 150 countries and something like 35 million amateur players.
All of which makes the way padel is usually described slightly backwards. The sport gets written about as though it were arriving in private homes, a club game finally making its way up the drive. It is not arriving. It is coming back.
About 2.5% of the homes we represent have both a tennis court and a padel court.
Villas with tennis and padel courts
| Property | Country | Tennis | Padel | Also on the property | Available for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Villa Mera | Morocco | Clay | Yes | Pétanque field | Rent |
| Villa Maré | Portugal | Hard | Yes | Private beach access, heated pool, cinema room | Rent |
| The Grove Estate | Estonia | Synthetic turf | Yes | Sauna house, indoor pool, river through the grounds | Rent |
| Triton Villa | Turks and Caicos | Clay and hard | Two courts | Pickleball court | Sale and rent |
The problem and the answer, side by side
There is something quietly good about a property that has both. Corcuera built his court because the tennis court was impossible. On these four estates both are possible, and they sit within a short walk of each other, the constraint that created the sport and the sport it created sharing one garden.
The court that never changed
Padel has barely moved since Acapulco. The International Padel Federation still fixes the court at twenty meters by ten, with the walls, the mesh, and a surface of cement, synthetic material or artificial grass. The dimensions of a game played in more than 150 countries are, more or less, the dimensions of one man's back garden. Every padel court in our collection is laid on artificial grass, which is why they feel familiar wherever you find them.
The tennis courts on the same four properties have nothing in common. Clay in Morocco, hard in Portugal, synthetic turf in Estonia, and at Triton Villa one of each, clay and hard. Tennis never standardized the ground it is played on, and that difference is not cosmetic. It is the one thing worth asking about before you travel, and it is worth knowing what each surface asks of you before you choose between them.
Two courts a short walk apart, and two completely different journeys to get there. Worth seeing in person.
